The holiday season might be over, but don't let that mid-winter blues settle in just yet… The Submarines (the Iphone band) and The Morning Benders have one more present for you...In conjunction with their upcoming North American tour (kicking off on Today), The Morning Benders covered a track by The Submarines …and The Submarines returned the favor by covering a Benders song; and they're giving them both away to you for free! Here are the dates of [...]
I'm not the biggest fan of post-rock. For the most part, I think alot of it is just muso wank. Mogwai can go fall in a ditch as far as I'm concerned. There's a reason why bands are post rock...because they couldn't write a proper pop song if their life depended on it. In addition to being the most pretentious musos on the planets, I can't stand most post rock because these guys that go by the names Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, David Sylvian, Bill Nelson etc etc have already been there and done that and did it [...]
Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Boris Skalsky formed New York City-based Dead Heart Bloom in 2005. The band has garnered a sturdy fan base since then, receiving comparisons to the "eclectic eccentricity of Beck" and the "dramatics of Bowie" from the rock criterati. Reviewers have also named Mark Kozelek, Jeff Buckley and even "Pet Sounds"-era Beach Boys as comparisons. Earlier in 2008, the band released the first and second of their three EP series, Fall In and Oh Mercy . Dead Heart Bloom now returns with In Chains , continuing the [...]
What is it about living in Chapel Hill? Is it something in the water? It seems that if you live there you sort of instinctively have the ability to RAWK. Alabama transplants, Western Civ seem to be no different. In their short time in the capital of all things indie this band has started to sound like it belongs on Merge and hanging out with Polvo and Superchunk while watching UNC basketball games. I guess you could say that Western Civ is yet another band that's been beamed from the 90's [...]
Anybody out there remember the early 90's when bands like Material Issue ruled the world? When Urge Overkill was singing about Sister Havana (my ex-lived across the street from where they filmed the video). I do...and apparently Middle States do as well. Here's this band in the tail end of the first decade of the 21st century and they sound so much like every band from 1992 I had to make sure I wasn't still doing my radio show at UM. Think of Middle States as a comfort food [...]
For those of us fortunate enough to be acquainted with De Rosa's 2006 debut Mend , the wait for album number two has been arduous and seemingly interminable; thirty months is a long time by anyone's standards but given their lead singer's aspirations, it was unlikely that the album was going to be rushed. Finally complete and packaged with original artwork by Glasgow's literary titan Alasdair Gray, Prevention builds on the promise of their debut and goes some way towards establishing De Rosa as one of the most accomplished and (dare we say it) cerebral [...]
It's been a while since I've done one of these, so it was about time. It's been interesting as of late here at the POP! Stereo. Several of these Ten Tracks You Need posts have been taken down by Blogger. I'm not sure why exactly because they don't tell you the offending track, but they're gone in any case. In an effort not to get kicked off of Blogger, I'm going to begin removing the older Ten Tracks You Need posts. So get them while their hot, as they won't be there much longer. In the meantime though, [...]
The Naked Hearts formed in New York City in January 2008. Their brand of pop combines the grungy, stripped down style of early 90's bands such as The Breeders and Madder Rose with the structured elegance of bands like Blonde Redhead and Autolux. Songwriters Amy Cooper (San Francisco) and Noah Wheeler (St. Louis) met in NYC while both playing the same night at the same club. Soon after Noah joined Amy on the road promoting her second solo release. While on the road, they began writing songs together and they recorded the first few songs onto a [...]
From May 2007 to July 2008, Kingsbury tried numerous different writing and recording strategies in their home studio, Sugarwood, in Winter Park, FL. The band (Mark Freeman, TJ Burke, Samantha Christine, and Bruce Reed) was still involved in promoting their critically acclaimed debut full-length The Great Compromise and touring across the country, but used what little time they had to write, record, and craft music in ways outside of what they were used to. The result is Lie To Me , the follow-up EP to The Great Compromise. Lie [...]
François Virot is a rare bird, who belongs to that endangered kind of musicians that are so devoted to their art that they never care to spend some time at home. You may not know it yet, but in the last few years, this hyperactive musician, originating from the city of Lyon, (he also plays the drums with his brother Charles in the ballistic noise pop trio Clara Clara) spent more time on the road than your three favorite bands put together… And together with the zillions of Clara Clara records, our boy [...]
Before changing his name, Scott Rosenberg carved out a successful career as avant composer and free jazz saxophonist who worked with the likes of Anthony Braxton and other pioneers of modern music. He has been called 'one of the best creative saxophonists in America' by the All Music Guide, and is a founding member of the psych band Pinkmountain, which includes Sam Coomes (Quasi, Elliot Smith) and Gino Robair (Tom Waits, Thinking Fellers Union). The metamorphosis began five years ago when Scott adopted Pinkmountain as his last name. He formed the band PAF with two other Mills College [...]
Aside from have a tasty acronym for a band name (TCBY) Tigers Can Bite You's indie rock roots are strong, lead by singer/guitarist Dave Woody, who has previously collaborated with the likes of Death Cab For Cutie and Grandaddy and was in another semi-legendary band Fiver. This new three piece group sets themselves apart from their predecessors and contemporaries with electronics that have more in common with Ladytron and M83, and a songwriting structure that is wholly unique. Their new album, Steve Ward Hears Voices is the realization of the [...]
The D'Urbervilles began in the Toronto suburb of Oshawa, Ontario as a means for childhood friends and underagers Tim Bruton (guitar, synth ) and John O'Regan (vocals, guitar, synth ) to see rock shows at local bars. Equipped with little more than a borrowed amplifier, an Echo and the Bunnymen cover, and a band name lifted from a 19 th century English novel on their high school reading list, these enterprising young men played a few gigs and liked performing enough to keep the band [...]
Padre Pio was started in 2006 in a run-down carriage house turned living and rehearsing quarters in Bushwick, Brooklyn. In spite of, or perhaps because of the leaking ceilings, as-of-yet unidentified species of spiders and constant hum of diesel engines, The Madeline EP was written. The songs were composed by Portland transplant David Mosey and produced by New York keyboard legend Joe McGinty. McGinty is most widely known for his five years as the keyboardist for The Psychedelic Furs and has also worked with Ryan Adams, The Ramones, Nada Surf, Kevin Ayers, Martha Wainwright, Devendra [...]
Great Northern , the band know for their grand, nudging, fuzzy, and memorably melodic songs, are back with a new album. Following up their 2007 debut full length, Trading Twilight For Daylight , Great Northern will release Remind Me Where The Light Is on April 21, 2009. For the next 3 months leading up to release, the band will release teaser videos following them through photo shoots, interviews, behind the scenes footage, and debuting brand new songs. Below, you'll find a link to a brand new teaser video, featuring a clip from a brand new [...]
During a busy summer, backing Vic Chesnutt in Europe, touring with Elf Power, and recording with Liz Durrett as her backing band on, Outside Our Gates , Ham1 somehow found the time to hit the studio. With the help of engineer Jason Nesmith of Casper & the Cookies, they found time to record their follow-up to last year's acclaimed Orange Twin release The Captain's Table . Named The Underground Stream, the album continues the enigmatic path charted by Ham1 , a band whose sound is familiar but [...]
For six months Local Natives (formerly known as Cavil at Rest) bunkered down in a two-bedroom house in Orange, CA. During that time songs were written, rewritten, and then recorded as their first full-length album with the help of producer Raymond Richards. Yeah that's pretty damn quick don't ya think? Anyway, the debut album earned the title of Gorilla Manor as homage to their humble abode and will likely be released in early 2009. Local Natives have that sort of Arcade Fire, Beirut, and Broken Social Scene, [...]
Credited as godfathers of the D.I.Y. movement, The Homosexuals : Bruno Wizard with guitarist Anton Heyman, bassist Jim Welton and a cast of revolving collaborators accumulated a treasure trove of other-worldly art-punk in the late 70s and early 80s, shunning the sniffs of big-label bloodhounds, only sporadically performing, and self-pressing tiny quantities of their own records only to disband completely by '83. Two recent archival releases, The Homosexuals CD (ReR), and the triple CD Astral Glamour (Hyped 2 Death), have brought the Homosexuals legacy back into focus. That being [...]
The Theater Fire , a roots-influenced, seven-piece indie-pop band from Texas, releases its third LP Matter and Light on December 9th, 2008. Matter and Light contains a wide range of instruments, combining horns, pedal steel, banjo, piano, fiddle, accordion, found percussion and singing saw with the standard bass, drum and guitar lineup. The result is a distinct fusion of country, jazz, zydeco, folk, blues, and rock. The two singer songwriters Don Feagin and Curtis Heath, along with the rest of the band, take us on a trip through the annals of music, drawing on [...]
Twiggy Frostbite took shape in the spring of 2006, inspired by the London Underground, and the music evolved into something unique. The untamed tones and frosty noise of the northern Swedish coast met the acoustics of The Tube to create a dreamlike atmosphere. Twiggy Frostbite has its roots in Gävle and shares members with The Deer Tracks and Grizzly Twister. The debut album Through Fire will arrive in the winter of 2009 and is a melodic journey that is a bit minimal, lush, ethereal, and most definitely Scandinavian. Check [...]
The Pop Stereo!
A-Trak - "Round of Applause" / "Where My Money At" (MP3 Download)
Skrillex Uses Satanic and Homosexual Influence to Win Grammys
Diplo & Usher “Climax”
Guadalupe Plata & Walter Daniels :: Girls Rock Austin
